The U.S. Air Force announced Thursday they awarded United Launch Agency the contract to launch the Space Test Program-3 mission at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida, in 2019.

The United Launch Agency, or ULA, will provide launch vehicle production, mission integration, launch operations and spaceflight certification in a firm fixed-price, standalone contract valued at $191,141,581, according to an announcement by the U.S. Air Force.

Last August, the U.S. Air Force debuted the competition for launch operations between ULA and SpaceX, which had won a contract earlier in the year to launch a GPS satellite, according to Space News.

The Space Test Program-3, or STP-3, mission consists of a primary space vehicle, known as the STPSat-6, and a propulsive Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle Secondary Payload Adapter, known as the ESPA. The ESPA utilizes excess launch capability by mounting additional payloads below the primary spacecraft, reducing launch cost and allowing additional mission time. The STPSat-6 will feature six of these additional payloads.

The STPSat-6 space vehicle will host the Space and Atmospheric Burst Reporting System-3 payload, which is designed to detect nuclear detonation.

The primary space vehicle will also feature the NASA Laser Communications Relay Demonstration payload, which is designed"to encode and transmit data at rates 10 to 100 times faster than today's fastest radio-frequency systems, using significantly less mass and power." It will allow NASA to study conditions on other worlds similar to the way hurricanes and the environment are studied on Earth.

This is the third competitive launch service contract under the current Phase 1A procurement strategy that the

. The strategy is designed to reintroduce competition into the Atlas launch program and end reliance on Russian rockets. The program was recently extended to 2019 to allow for the development of new launch vehicles, which, according to the announcement, added six competitive launches, for a total of 15.

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